The following steps explain how to stretch (aerate) a pitcher of milk using the steam wand attachment of an espresso machine, and how to heat it to the desired temperature.
1
Pour milk into the pitcher, so that it is more than half full. Remember that reheating is not advisable, so don’t put in more than you need to begin with.
2
Purge the steam wand on the espresso machine to remove any condensation.
3
Place the tip of the steam wand just under the surface of the milk and turn it on at full power. Reduce the power slightly if you’re heating a very small volume of milk.
4
Begin stretching the milk out by directing the flow of steam along the circumference of the pitcher, creating a whirlpool of milk. (A)
5
To introduce more air, bring the tip of the steam wand right up to the surface, listening for a sharp ‘crack’ accompanied by a sucking noise. There shouldn’t be any large bubbles visible.
6
Continue spinning the milk and stretching it out until you reach 40°C/104°F. At this point, it is harder to stretch the milk because free-flowing fats become a problem.
7
Dip the steam wand further into the milk and keep spinning until you reach 65°C/149°F. (B)
8
Immediately turn off the wand.
9
Give the pitcher a light tap to burst any surface bubbles.
10
Swirl the milk froth in quick, tight circles to combine fully. Pour immediately.
THE LATTE
Ordering a ‘latte’ in an Italian café is likely to result in the arrival of a glass of milk. The word means ‘milk’ in Italian so if you want a coffee, be sure to place a ‘caffè’ in front of it. In simple terms, a latte is an espresso topped up with hot milk. It is designed to provide a coffee kick to those who would prefer a less ferocious coffee flavour.
A latte generally comes in a larger cup or glass than a cappuccino would and has slightly less foam. In many mainstream cafés, the caffè latte is a very milky drink indeed – but, given the inflated proportions of the cappuccino in those same establishments, it has become difficult to pinpoint the difference between the two.
I am convinced that most habitual latte-drinkers would happily drink a cappuccino, and vice versa. In spite of the tens of thousands of coffees that I have prepared over the years, I have never met anyone who has protested that their latte was too much like a cappuccino or their cappuccino too much like a latte.
The point is that coffee terminology is far from exact and people who order one of these drinks expect to be served something slightly foamy, not too strong and warm enough to sip but not gulp.
Prufrock Coffee on Shoreditch High Street in London was the first café that I encountered that confronted this lack of discrimination by simply offering its milk-based (double) espresso in three volumetric sizes: 4 oz, 6 oz and 8 oz. In doing so, it identified an obvious truth that had previously escaped us. All latte-drinkers and all cappuccino drinkers want the same amount of coffee and all want textured milk; it’s the quantity of milk used to dilute the espresso that differentiates us.
I recommend that a latte is served in a larger cup, with a capacity of 180–200 ml/6–7 fl. oz). I think it’s best with a single shot of espresso (18–22 g/⅔-¾ oz), and topped up with only lightly aerated milk.
LATTE ART
Latte art has been possibly the greatest growth driver for speciality coffee in the past ten years. It wasn’t the flavour of great coffee that first got me obsessed with espresso; it was a fascination with pouring latte art – and I know that I’m not alone.
Latte art is not exclusive to the latte. The techniques can be used to decorate any espresso drink containing steamed milk. I should make it clear that I am referring to pouring milk from a pitcher to create a pattern on top of the drink, not pouring milk into the drink then decorating it using a cocktail stick and drops of chocolate sauce. (As impressive as some examples of this might be, it is not a practical way of preparing and consuming coffee.)
Learning how to pour latte art is like learning to pole vault – seemingly impossible until you’ve done it once. As I describe how latte art works, I hope that you will start to understand why some techniques are successful and others fail.
Freshly steamed milk should be a homogenous mixture of air and milk. It should look like white, glossy paint, without any visible bubbles. The tendency for steamed milk is always for the lighter stuff to rise to the top of the pitcher and the heavier (more viscous) milk to sink to the bottom. Repeated swirling of the pitcher should combat this. It is important that the consistency of the milk remains slick and creamy while you are pouring.
HOW TO POUR LATTE ART
Firstly, the espresso should be freshly pulled (A). If left too long the crema can begin to drain, making it fluffy and dry. You don’t actually need a crema to pour latte art, but a good malleable crema will enhance your creations with a marbled effect.
A steady pour is the first skill to master. Pour too slowly and the lip of the jug may hold back the foamier milk, allowing only the denser milk to slip away from underneath. Pour too quickly and you give yourself little time to create the art itself, as well as running the risk of splashing the espresso and ‘muddying’ the crema. The jug should be tilted so that you can pour just the right quantity of foamed milk as a unified mass. An over-full pitcher or one that’s too small will cause problems.
The initial pour must come from a height (B). Steamed milk has a propensity to float on the surface of the espresso. Good latte art takes advantage of this fact, but only in the later stages of the pour. The first stream of milk will punch into the surface of the coffee, sinking into the base of the cup with turbulent force. At any point after the initial pour, the actual artwork can begin (C). To do this, the milk pitcher must be tipped forward slightly to open the width of the lip. (Sometimes it is easier to angle the cup towards the lip of the pitcher slightly.) The jug must also be lowered closer to the surface of the drink, an action that is helped by the tipping of the cup (D). When the milk is poured lower, it hits the coffee with less force, causing the light-textured milk to float to the surface and providing white definition against the brown espresso.
Move the milk pitcher steadily and gracefully from side to side (E), creating smooth, wave-like patterns on the surface of the drink. The frequency and length of your movements, plus the rate of flow of the milk, will determine the final pattern. Just before the cup is full, raise the pitcher higher so that the milk punches back through the surface, drawing a line through the pattern to bring all the pieces together (F).
THE CAPPUCCINO
The modern-day cappuccino is strongly associated with Italian espresso culture, but the cappuccino – in name, at least – is based on a drink that predates the espresso machine by at least 50 years. It has its roots in the kapuziner, a popular drink in 19th-century Vienna, which consisted of coffee with a dollop of whipped cream stirred through it. It is commonly believed that the kapuziner got its name because it was a similar colour to the brown vestments worn by the holy men of Salzburg’s Kapuziner Abbey. This is partly true, but in a more indirect way than most of us probably imagine, since both kapuziner and its French equivalent, capuchin, were also used at the time to describe colours. When the contemporary cappuccino was invented, it adopted the same name because it was visually quite similar.
The earliest references to the cappuccino as a foamed-milk, espresso-based drink date from the 1950s, not long after the invention of ‘true’ espresso. By that time, it had become popular in London. ‘We really have a beano [party] on a cup of cappuccino,’ wrote a columnist for Punch magazine in 1957.
Recipes of the era describe the drink as ‘an espresso mixed with equal amounts of milk and foam’. This statement is ambiguous. Does it mean a drink of equal parts espresso, milk and foam? Or does it mean an espresso mixed with an indeterminate quantity of e
qual parts of milk and foam? The two drinks could be quite different.
Most baristas are taught the rule of thirds (the former of the two possible definitions) and many coffee wall charts depict the cappuccino as three equal parts (1:1:1).
Ignoring the fact that a drink made from individual components of espresso, hot milk and fluffy foam is entirely wrong, both visually and texturally, a drink prepared from equal volumes of all three components would probably have been much smaller and much stronger than the drink we think of today as a cappuccino.
Even if all cappuccinos were made using a double espresso, we would only be pouring a mere 60–80 g (60–80 ml/2–3 fl. oz) of combined milk and foam, which comes much closer to the ratio used to make a macchiato (see page 111). I suggest that a more realistic ratio for a cappuccino is 1:2:2 or, indeed, 1:4, where the ‘4’ is a homogenous mixture of milk and air.
As with most members of the Italian espresso and milk family, these drinks tend to be more of a concept that can be customized rather than a strictly defined recipe. But if there is such a thing as a traditional cappuccino, the ratio is more likely to be a single shot of espresso (18–22 g/⅔-¾ oz), topped up with around 100–120 g (100–120 ml/3½-4 fl. oz) of moderately aerated milk.
THE FLAT WHITE
The flat white has shot to stardom in the past few years, to the point where it is now as commonplace in the world’s best cafés as kale salads and Apple laptops. It is hard to believe that a mere ten years ago it was the preserve of only the craftiest of coffee shops – as well as the whole of Australia and New Zealand. Since then, Antipodean espresso culture has successfully exported itself around the world, and the flat white, sporting its signature rosetta leaf, is the poster boy for the revolution.
The history of the flat white in Auckland dates back to the early 1980s, to the original Auckland coffee shop, DKD Café. This late-night bohemian hangout, located in a back room of the Civic Theatre, was famous for its hot chocolate (served with a chocolate fish on the side), but it also served a flat white – basically a black coffee with milk.
I find this intriguing, since I worked in a New Zealand-inspired café in 2000 that had both a ‘flat’ and a ‘flat white’ on its menu. The first was a black coffee and the second was a black coffee with milk. I can remember an Australian co-worker explaining to me that the drink we were serving was not a flat white as he understood it and, to emphasize his point, he promptly produced what I can only describe as a small latte.
Early appearances in Australia depict a much milkier drink than you might expect to receive from a café today, placing the drink very close to the latte in its make-up. Some people might argue that the early flat white was in fact a latte in all but name, and it is almost certain that the name was born out of a culture of simple and honest Antipodean ordering, where a ‘short black’ is an espresso and a ‘long black’ an americano. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that a white coffee with no foam on top becomes a ‘flat white’.
One thing that nearly everyone agrees upon is that the milk in a flat white is textured but not foamy – and this, perhaps, is the major distinction between the flat white and the cappuccino. We must remember that the cappuccino of the 1980s consisted more often than not of espresso and milk with a liberal amount of milk foam spooned on top.
As to the international fame that the ‘flattie’ is now enjoying, a large chunk of kudos must go to the Flat White café on Berwick Street in London’s Soho district. Flat White opened in 2005 and, in doing so, doubled the number of speciality coffee shops in London at the time (Monmouth in Borough Market was the other one). With its simple menu and professional service, Flat White was, and still is, the epitome of laid-back Aussie charm. It has brought the concept of the flat white to the masses and gone on to inspire a generation of coffee-shop operators.
In 2010 the UK’s Costa Coffee chain, which accounted for around 1,000 stores at the time, announced that it would be adding the flat white to its menu, describing the drink as ‘richer than a latte, creamier than a cappuccino’.
So what exactly is a flat white today? Perhaps the best way to describe the flat white that I make is ‘a small latte where some of the milk has been replaced by an extra shot of espresso’. Practically speaking, this means we’re looking at around 35–45 g/1 ¼–1 ½ oz espresso (a double shot) topped up with 120 g (120 ml/4 fl. oz) of lightly foamed milk.
THE MACCHIATO
The macchiato is an excellent drink for those in need of a quick, sharp espresso hit while wishing to avoid the feral potency of a naked shot. A tiny splash of milk in an espresso reins in the temperature of the drink and the addition of a small amount of fat and sugar pulls out caramel, chocolate, vanilla and nutty flavours from the coffee; meanwhile, the body and concentration that we demand from a drink of this size are preserved.
I’ve served a macchiato to the British prime minister more than once, which makes me think that, if it’s good enough for someone running a country, it must be good enough for you and me.
The macchiato is another ‘milked’ espresso drink whose exact nature is the subject of debate. One consequence of the uncertainty has been a drink served with only the tiniest dollop of milk foam on top when it should contain a larger splash. This inconsistency of approach derives partly from the definition of the word ‘macchiato’, which in Italian means ‘marked’. If you take the translation literally, a dollop of foam on top (to mark the espresso) should suffice, but when it comes to taste this kind of macchiato is hard to tell apart from an espresso.
Surely there must be more to it than a simple blemish of milk? In Italy, the ‘mark’ of the macchiato is used to describe an espresso that has had a splash of milk added but, owing to the fact that the milk falls through the cream, would otherwise remain indistinguishable from a regular espresso.
A true macchiato should incorporate a targeted splash of steamed milk. I prefer a macchiato that consists of half espresso and half milk, but the beauty of this drink is that it can be tailored to your preference. Top up a 35–45 g/1 ¼–1 ½ oz espresso (a double shot) with 45 g (45 ml/1 ½ fl. oz) of lightly steamed milk. Latte art (see pages 104–106) is entirely possible on a macchiato, but can prove tricky in what is typically such a small cup.
OTHER BREWING METHODS
08
INTRODUCTION
For as long as coffee has been consumed, we have been developing new ways to prepare it. As we have seen in Chapter 1, coffee drinkers are historically an enterprising bunch, but it’s not just a caffeine-fuelled passion to innovate that has spawned new inventions in the coffee world, it’s also an attempt to address a fundamental problem with coffee itself – the fact that it floats when you add water to it. The significance of this fact should not be underestimated. If we to lived in a universe where coffee simply sank, this book would contain considerably fewer pages!
Tea, by contrast, always sinks. It’s for this reason that teapots are generally simple, stout and stocky affairs, with their spouts emerging from halfway up, or near the top of the pot. Functionally, a teapot need not be any more complicated than this, since the vast majority of the tea will remain in the pot once the leaves are saturated. Tea leaves are also fairly large compared with coffee grounds, so a simple tea strainer is all that is needed to stop stray leaves.
Coffee ebbs, wanes, swirls and floats. An innocuous knock of a settled coffee pot results in a tumultuous explosion of muddy clouds. If left to settle long enough, the larger grounds will float to the top of the pot and the finer grounds will sink to the bottom. It is, undeniably, a huge inconvenience. So how do we get around this?
Brewers typically fall into one of two camps (though some of the ones listed below could be categorized as both): immersion brewers and percolation brewers. Immersion brewers, like a French press, give sustained contact between coffee and water, offering a fair amount of control to the operator. Percolation brewers are slightly different, because they work by allowing coffee to flow through a bed of grounds, ext
racting flavour as it goes. It’s kind of like the difference between having a bath and having a shower. One routine gives a thorough soak, while the other is more of a complete rinse.
The type of brewer and the method used for brewing determines the style of coffee you get in the cup: for example, a French press typically results in a full-bodied cup with a rich mouthfeel, while paper-filtered coffee is usually more delicate. An understanding that the positive characteristics of the bean can be highlighted through the method of preparation will often lead to delicious coffee.
Be sure to read about brew temperature on page 69 and grinding in Chapter 5 before diving into these brewing methods. I would also recommend purchasing a pour-over kettle (with its distinctive long spout) to help distribute water evenly and accurately for the cloth filter (see pages 126-7) and paper filter (see pages 128–9) methods.
A beautiful syphon brewer uses vapour pressure to mix water and coffee, and then to un-mix them! (see pages 138–141)
Each brewer produces a unique style of drink that can and should be tailored to the needs to the individual coffee. From full-bodied immersion brewing, to light and delicate pour-over coffee, I encourage you to explore them all.
THE POT
Short of placing ground coffee in a bowl with hot water and drinking it (see pages 72–73), the coffee pot is the simplest coffee brewer out there and the only one which foregoes filtration altogether.
The Curious Barista's Guide to Coffee Page 15
